Facebook Testing the Want Button

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Facebook Testing the Want Button

Posted by samzenpus on Monday July 2, 2012 @09:33AM from the do-not-want dept.

redletterdave writes "Facebook already knows what you 'Like.' Soon, it may ask you what you 'Want'. Tom Waddington, a Web developer for the craft website Cut Out + Keep, discovered that Facebook has included code for a disabled 'Want' button within the Javascript of its list of social plug-ins. The code was released to the Facebook Javascript SDK last Wednesday, but Waddington discovered the disabled button among other embedded tags, including 'degrees,' 'social context' and 'page events.' Waddington says the 'Want' button would work with Open Graph projects that use the tag 'products.'"

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More than anything in the world... by Anonymous Coward · 2012-07-02 09:33 · Score: 5, Funny

...I want Facebook to die.
1. Re:More than anything in the world... by Anonymous Coward · 2012-07-02 09:40 · Score: 3, Funny
  
  Your ideas are intriguing to me and I would like to subscribe to your newsletter
2. Re:More than anything in the world... by biometrizilla · 2012-07-02 09:40 · Score: 5, Funny
  
  I want to see how many "Wants" Kate Upton's page gets.
3. Re:More than anything in the world... by CanHasDIY · 2012-07-02 10:06 · Score: 4, Funny
  
  ...I want Facebook to die.
  Where's that damn like button when you need it?
  
  --
  An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
4. Re:More than anything in the world... by ae1294 · 2012-07-02 12:10 · Score: 4, Funny
  
  Your ideas are intriguing to me and I would like to subscribe to your facebook.
5. Re:More than anything in the world... by Charliemopps · 2012-07-02 12:17 · Score: 3, Insightful
  
  unfortunately fads only die when even more terrible fads replace them.
6. Re:More than anything in the world... by rockout · 2012-07-02 12:43 · Score: 5, Insightful
  
  None of you really have a problem with Facebook. Your real problem is with the human race, a large percentage of which have signed up for Facebook and whose numbers have grown so large that it's impossible for the rest of us to avoid Facebook, as it has permeated our lives whether we wanted it to or not.
  It's like living in Boston and trying to avoid any mention of the Red Sox.
  
  --
  I've learned that they're worthless, so I don't read AC comments anymore.
7. Re:More than anything in the world... by schnell · 2012-07-02 13:21 · Score: 5, Insightful
  
  I can't think of any marketing professional who would give two shakes about this metric
  Are you kidding? If I make a post about how I just bought a new Samsung Galaxy Class Starship at T-Mobile and my friends click the "want" button, it is absolutely worth gold to T-Mobile to have their ads steered to those FB users.
  Or as another application... I already share my Amazon Wishlist with my friends so they can buy me stuff I actually want for my birthday/Christmas ... why not push that directly onto Facebook and allow sellers of those items to advertise for them and/or compete on price via ads?
  
  --
  "95% of all Slashdot .sig quotes are incorrect or completely fabricated." -Benjamin Franklin
8. Re:More than anything in the world... by sarysa · 2012-07-02 14:18 · Score: 3, Insightful
  
  Which is why we so desperately need to fund space research. It's the only way to get away from Facebook.
  
  --
  Charisma is the measure of someone's ability to lie with a straight face.
9. Re:More than anything in the world... by davester666 · 2012-07-02 17:32 · Score: 2
  
  and fb will 'accidentally' become the affiliate associated with all amazon links...
  
  --
  Sleep your way to a whiter smile...date a dentist!
10. Re:More than anything in the world... by Chrisq · 2012-07-02 20:49 · Score: 2
  
  ...I want Facebook to die.
  Where's that damn like button when you need it?
  And where's the button to say you want a like button.
11. Re:More than anything in the world... by silentcoder · 2012-07-02 22:24 · Score: 3, Interesting
  
  >It will. It's just another fad after all.
  I'm not so sure you're right. It's already outlived every social network before it (by which I mean total lifespan from foundation to demise) - and it doesn't even seem to have peaked in users yet.
  Several attempts at competition have come and gone - twice from the mighty google (and one of those arguably had a better user-experience to start with) and still it remains the behemoth of most people's online experience.
  There may be more to this than just a fad. I think part of it may be in their internal approach to running the company. They seem to seriously focus on being an awesome place to work who can get the best of the best coding minds. A friend of mine was a google engineer, she just left them for facebook - she actually took a paycut to do that (granted she was with google in Zurich which is the best paid development office in the WORLD - she would take a paycut for ANY other job).
  If you look at their job ads they include this choice line: "Most developers are used to weeks or months between writing code and it reaching production. At facebook, your code will be in production on the busiest website in the world within days."
  Now doesn't that sound exciting ? Scary? Challenging ? The kind of thing that the true geniusses of our field love ?
  Maybe, just maybe, facebook is doing well because they offer a service their users find valuable, their customers benefit from (and I am well aware that those aren't the same people) and they give their technologists the creative free reign to make magic ?
  
  --
  Unicode killed the ASCII-art *
12. Re:More than anything in the world... by JasterBobaMereel · 2012-07-03 00:48 · Score: 2
  
  I joined Facebook because a lot of people I know are on it, this is mostly the same reason most people joined, I don't think much of it but my friends are still there, (mostly because so is everyone else)
  They would have to seriously annoy their users to lose them, this is what happened to MySpace, and the biggest complaint against Google+ was that "no one is on it" ...
  Why would you leave Facebook to join another similar system that has only a few of your friends on it ...?
  
  --
  Puteulanus fenestra mortis
Obligatory by sam_paris · 2012-07-02 09:38 · Score: 5, Funny

Do not want.
1. Re:Obligatory by hawks5999 · 2012-07-02 10:16 · Score: 2
  
  That (do not want) will become the most requested feature after A Dislike button.
2. Re:Obligatory by ackthpt · 2012-07-02 10:36 · Score: 2
  
  Do not want.
  You need an Ignore button.
  
  --
  
  A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
3. Re:Obligatory by ackthpt · 2012-07-02 10:37 · Score: 2
  
  Then hopefully Zuckerberg won't Like it.
  I wonder if there's already a Zuck-it button in the works.
  
  --
  
  A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
4. Re:Obligatory by ohnocitizen · 2012-07-02 11:02 · Score: 3, Funny
  
  I already want it. SO BAD. I want the following buttons for status: "Dislike", "Do Not Want", "That's What She Said", "That's What He Said", "That's What the Fuzzy Little Creature From Alpha Centauri Said".... Oh, and also "Winter is Coming".
5. Re:Obligatory by mug+funky · 2012-07-02 13:24 · Score: 2
  
  there already is a clitoris button. just saying... maybe you should search a bit more for it.
6. Re:Obligatory by Pax681 · 2012-07-02 14:04 · Score: 2
  
  and lo.. when Mug Funky looked above there was indeed a great WHOOSHING sound
Next: "Fucked" button. by Post-O-Matron · 2012-07-02 09:38 · Score: 5, Funny

So we know who fucked whom.
What else is left?
1. Re:Next: "Fucked" button. by V-similitude · 2012-07-02 09:53 · Score: 2, Interesting
  
  Want to fuck?
2. Re:Next: "Fucked" button. by 0100010001010011 · 2012-07-02 10:28 · Score: 4, Informative
  
  They used to have it. Under 'Relationships' there was a 'Hooked Up' option with a date. iirc it was one of 4: Single, It's complicated, In relationship with and hooked up.
  Back before the apps, before ... well damn near everything.
3. Re:Next: "Fucked" button. by jrroche · 2012-07-02 11:35 · Score: 2
  
  They used to have it. Under 'Relationships' there was a 'Hooked Up' option with a date. iirc it was one of 4: Single, It's complicated, In relationship with and hooked up.
  Back before the apps, before ... well damn near everything.
  I've been with Facebook since it was only available for individual university campuses and there was never a Hooked Up option for relationship status. There was, however, a way you could specify how you knew someone (i.e. worked with [friend] at [company] in [year], had [class] with [friend] in [year], [friend] is a relative, etc) and "hooked up with [friend] in [year]" was among those options, but it was very buried in a person's friends list and certainly not something that was displayed prominently on their profile. It wouldn't have made sense anyway. A hookup, assuming all goes as it should, is by nature not a relationship status.
Dislike Button by Anonymous Coward · 2012-07-02 09:41 · Score: 4, Insightful

That would actually make facebook a useful tool. Of course the advertisers don't want their products to be branded as disliked, so it will never happen.
Like a want or want a like by Rejemy · 2012-07-02 09:49 · Score: 2

Can I "like" someone's "want" or "want" someone's "like"?
Re:Ob. Babylon 5 Reference by Antipater · 2012-07-02 09:50 · Score: 5, Funny

Yeah, but the next question in that line is "Do you have anything worth living for?" Then Facebook gets sued for causing a thousand suicides.

--
Everything is better with chainsaws.
Sadly, that knowledge could have helped by Trashcan+Romeo · 2012-07-02 09:50 · Score: 2

"A "Want" button would help Facebook get back into Wall Street's good graces. By opening up an API for a "Want" button, companies will be able to more accurately gauge the interest in a given product, whether it's already released or still upcoming." Too bad Facebook didn't have access to such information before changing everyone's e-mail address.
Re:Deslike button by Anonymous Coward · 2012-07-02 09:58 · Score: 2, Insightful

a "Deslike button"
You're fond of diethylstilbestrol? You enjoy Discrete Event Simulation? You still encrypt with the Data Encryption Standard? You prefer flying out of Desroches Airport?
Re:Great by Nidi62 · 2012-07-02 10:01 · Score: 4, Funny

Soon you will be able to tell Facebook more complicated things like:
me want banana like banana .
Daylight come and me wanna go home?

--
The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for it to be pitted against a slightly greater evil
Facebook has the only button Facebook needs: by PeanutButterBreath · 2012-07-02 10:26 · Score: 5, Funny

"Log Out"
I'm sure they are looking in to ways to phase it out.
Do not want... by nighthawk243 · 2012-07-02 10:52 · Score: 2

Can we also get a "Do not want" button as well? The amount of fat/ugly girls trolled would be amusing.
Re:What Do I want? by jones_supa · 2012-07-02 17:19 · Score: 2

It's your computer. It does what you tell it to do (*).
But he probably didn't tell his computer to track him with like buttons on third party sites. It's something you have to explicitly block, and that's the problem.
Generations by DrYak · 2012-07-03 03:20 · Score: 2

Why would you leave Facebook to join another similar system that has only a few of your friends on it ...?
Because those friends aren't your parents, teachers, etc.
Simply wait, I'm sure that a generation gap will form in a few years.
When your are an old grump, you don't join facebook, because you and your peers are already used to organise your life in a way which doesn't involve internet.
When you are a young adult today, you join facebook, because all your friends are organising their lives online through it.
When you are a kid today, even if you're only forming your first social circles and the like, you'll probably be okay with using facebook for this, because it's here, it's well enough for what you need, and most importantly, the old grumps aren't around.
Now shift this list a few years: It's easy to see whiile some time down the road the kids will start to flock to some new underdog, while the rest of the older prefer staying on facebook.
If you were a kid, would you really like to be on the same social network as your school's principal or the teacher you hate the most or your parents, if all of them were as internet-savvy as todays young adults ?

--
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]